25 years of building startups, products, marketplaces, and ecosystems.
I’m a product & startup builder, serial entrepreneur & angel Investor. writer. former Head of Product @ Uber Developer Platform, co-founder of the DataPortability Project, podcaster, and author.
I’m an Australian living in both San Francisco & Brisbane. I’m passionate about supercharging companies worldwide, and I’m curious about everything.
I have set aside limited time to work with a small portfolio of companies on a 1:1 basis.
Insights from some of the most important companies in the world.
Some of the companies I’ve worked with
I help startups avoid wasting precious time and money to fast-forward to the best high-growth answers.
Avoid wasting precious time and money
Hiring the wrong people
Endless debate and indecision
Building the wrong things
Taking too long to ship things
Building products that fail to convert, retain and delight users
Constant misalignment between product, engineering, sales, marketing, etc
Long, painful sales cycles
Endless backlogs of customer feature requests and customers who are never fully satisfied
Wasting time pitching the wrong story to the wrong investors
In short: Don’t risk burning your precious capital while someone else builds your idea better and faster.
Fast-forward to the best high-growth answers
Source and hire the best people for the job
Quickly build conviction and consensus based on first principles, design-led thinking, good intuition, and experience
Rapidly build and ship the right products that delight and retain users released in thin, polished slices.
Drive and maintain strong alignment between all functions with clear planning and communication techniques
Slash long sales cycles and endless feature requests with strong sales enablement and self-serve onboarding and growth features (PLG)
Go beyond products to build platforms, marketplaces, and ecosystems
Tell compelling stories to the right investors that close meaningful funding rounds
In short: Efficiently build a silicon-valley-style tech startup that can change the world. The first to scale, wins.
I’ve gone deep across a broad range of domains.
General Startups Dynamics
I have built, and run a series of great startups. Most as CEO, all as co-founder. See Linkedin. I work with founders to help them understand all the fundamental patterns and processes required to build a successful product-led, high-growth, venture-backed company.
Digital transformation
I’ve worked inside some of the most disruptive new companies, and with some of the largest legacy enterprises in the world. Combined, this experience gives me a unique insight into how to drive internal change that breaks down and rebuilds calcified cultures and reignites innovative thinking.
Angel and VC fundraising
I have both raised and invested money as a Startup founder and an angel investor. I’ve developed and read countless investor pitch decks. I apply that experience to create compelling stories that drive investor conviction.
Business Strategy
I’ve built business strategies across B2B, B2C, B2B2C, and Developer Platforms. Choosing the right model can mean the difference between middling success and break-out disruption. I help founders think outside the box to create models that power true disruption.
Org and culture design
I’ve helped many companies re-design their org chart, ways of working, cultural values, and product principles to minimize dysfunction and maximize efficient execution. I help execs organize the team for maximum autonomy and accountability at the edge while maintaining alignment with the core business strategy.
Product strategy
I’ve been involved in the conception of hundreds of products across a diverse range of industries and personas. Building great products involves a careful combination of art and science. I help founders translate their vision into elevated yet actionable product strategies.
Product management and design
I’ve managed the development of countless products and product teams. The only way to translate a business and product strategy into concrete outcomes is with intense focus and careful craft. I help accelerate the development of roadmaps, product designs, self-serve onboarding flows, retention strategies, viral loops, and more.
Developer platforms & ecosystems
Having built a platform from 0 to 85 Billion API calls a month (Echo) and served as the Head of Product for the Uber Developer Platform, I am one of the few leaders who have built and run a developer platform at scale. I help supercharge traditional product and engineering teams to design products that developers love (APIs, SDKs, Dev Portals, Documentation etc). Read more.
Two-sided and on-demand marketplaces
Having worked at Uber and a number of other on-demand marketplaces, I have extensive experience building two-sided marketplaces. I help product and ops teams solve the cold start problem, design self-reinforcing marketplace dynamics, build systems that manage reputation and trust, and more.
Enterprise BD, sales, strategy
I’ve worked extensively with enterprise sales teams and central product and IT groups at CNN, Univision, NASDQ, Disney, UMG, NBCU, Coke, Fanta, AT&T, and more. I work with GTM teams to develop messaging, pitch decks, and other sales enablement tools to drive products into enterprise customers while minimizing streams of costly feature requests into the product development process.
Data Portability
I coined the phrase Data Portability. Invented Backplane & APML This field is particularly important now given the introduction of GDPR. I help companies design data collection and management systems based on user rights, open standards, and compliance.
An engagement model that fits your needs.
Live video meetings - I join your team, and I help.
Onboard: Performing initial deep-dive on existing plans and problems. This helps me on board quickly.
Strategize: Drive strategic meetings to develop or refine an effective high-level plan of action. This helps create a clear context for the collaboration.
Accelerate: Sketching out frameworks/rough drafts of key deliverables (E.g. PRDs, roadmaps, go-to-market strategy, product designs, etc) in real-time with the team. This accelerates all work products.
Elevate: Reviewing team deliverables (including pre-release software) and making pointed and actionable suggestions for improvement. This elevates the implementation details.
Operationalize: Joining weekly meetings to protect strategic alignment in all discussions and decisions. This mitigates thrash, wasted time, and inconsistent execution due to strategy drift.
Advisor Tier
Intended for light-touch weekly guidance. Great for teams who need a fresh perspective on their strategy and tactics.
Useful for high-level strategy discussions OR 1 sustained workstream at a time (E.g. Product strategy)
Lite reviews of deliverables
Monthly retainer
$7,040 cash + $7,040 stock
Mentor Tier
Intended for weekly, hands-on support and coaching of the founder and/or senior team. Great for a company looking to supercharge one or more existing team members and/or build out the team and culture.
Useful to support up to 2 concurrent sustained workstreams (E.g. Weekly high-level product/business strategy and weekly detailed product design reviews)
Medium-level review deliverables
Email support
Monthly Retainer
$11,968 cash + $11,968 stock
Fractional Executive Tier
Intended for teams looking for a fractional chief product officer and/or guidance over a medium to large product+eng team.
Useful to support 3-5 sustained workstreams (E.g. Weekly high-level product/business strategy, Detailed product design reviews, and Org design/culture setting)
Detailed deliverable reviews and document authorship
Email support
Chat support (E.g. Slack)
Occasional in-person meetings
Monthly Retainer
$19,712 cash + $19,712 stock
All cash option
Pay the stock component in cash to get a 20% discount on the total retainer
Limited slots available. Offered on a best fit basis.
Recorded Video Q&A - Get expert advice just when you need it.
Email questions and get detailed, audio and video replies within a week.
This beta program is subject to change.
Limited slots available. Offered on a first-come, first-served basis.
Silicon Valley-style disruption demands an abundance mindset.
Ideal stage
I enjoy helping companies at all stages…
Early-stage companies: I generally help with product market fit, hiring, and fundraising.
Mid-stage companies: I generally help with organizing the team to scale, moving the product from point solution to platform, rotating the culture from sales-led to product-led, and/or coaching the CPO to develop an elevated and effective product strategy.
Late-stage or enterprise companies: I generally help with breaking out of incrementalism to restore the capacity to make big, bold bets.
At all stages, I focus on saving wasted time and money to fast forward to the best high-growth outcomes as quickly as possible.
Ideal characteristics
I’m interested in companies with…
Potential to disrupt some fundamental aspect of the world
A founder with ambitious (global) goals
A coachable team eager to evolve and improve quickly
A “Chris-shaped hole” in the team where I can add a lot of value quickly
My goal is to make a big impact, quickly.
“Wisdom and Passion”
“One of the top advisors you can find on this planet”
“Almost clairvoyant ability to see big opportunities”
“Someone to keep you focused on what really matters”
“A true legend with no ego just wisdom, knowledge, and the power to achieve great things.”
“I have had the good fortune to get to work alongside some incredible start-up mentors at YCombinator, Google Launchpad, The Family, and speaking at events like WebSummit, Techne Summit, and StartCon (to name a few). In my mind, Chris Saad stands out as one of the best.”
“We still use the frameworks that he gave us. He moves incredibly quickly, so we covered a lot of ground in each session … Chris helped us develop more clarity and confidence in our product roadmap, and was instrumental in a major product rework.”
“His coaching style ensured we retained full ownership of the strategy while developing it to be the best it could be … Chris consistently worked towards precision and clarity ... He diligently helped us de-conflate core aspects of our organization and product strategies … He not only helped us pave the way to become a product-led company but also taught us a lot along the way”
Let’s get to work
I don’t have time to work with everyone.
So I regularly create free content to support founders on their journey.